Overview
- Peer‑reviewed results were published Nov. 26 in Science Robotics with collaborators at Erasmus Medical Center.
- The life‑sized system can impose brief ~200 ms response holds and modulate perceived inertia and viscosity in real time while participants stand.
- Delayed sensory feedback produced large, unstable sway in 20 participants, and lowering inertia or applying negative viscosity caused similar instability.
- Boosting inertia and viscosity during delayed feedback enabled a new group of 10 participants to regain control, reducing sway by up to about 80 percent.
- Researchers say the findings could inform assistive wearables or robotic training and advance humanoid balance control, with further validation needed in older and clinical populations.